Chili

No thanks, I am not much of a believer myself but would like to know what the names of these four rivers mean or possibly can mean according to your method.

So I hold that this river represents life itself and perhaps the wisdom of God in us to live this life without the engagement of our faculty of reason (TOK). That is how and why it only waters the surface of the earth until it divides into two branches that run side by side throughout the entire land of Havilah and Cush.

Both these rivers 'wind' to show that humans will look in all directions to find happiness along the Pishon (good gold and beautiful things) while nothing they find there is infinitely satisfying. In this sense does the Gihon contradict the Pishon or at least tell us that pain will come in equal proportion to the amount of pleasure we find. Nevertheless, we humans would say, there is more pleasure around the bend and that is how we are driven to keep going and look for more, forever more until finally . . .

while looking back on our own life we see a river rise in the East -- which would be in Eden from where we went West because we can't go East from East of Eden. Now notice that this river does not wind or go anywhere but rise as if it was the old river that we left behind before we pursued our faculty of reason (TOK) that led us West, and increasingly further West until we reached the end of our world to see this river rise 'back home.'

See the movement of these first two rivers? Surely, they do not represent virtues but the Involutionary period (yang) of life that ends with an awakening of some sort.

The free flow of the Tigris represents the unfolding of the reign of God in us (Evolutionary of Yin) until we arrive at the fourth river called Eu(bright)-phrates(mind) where the journey of life ends.

Chili

Hello again Beth, I could add a whole bunch of stuff here but should point out that the Tigris and Euphrates do not run side by side leading somewhere. They are the promised where ever we are once we are there.

Chris Weimer

If you can't receive the criticism well, than how can you expect your research to be accepted? Besides, I view this as a continuation of earlier debates we had, yet you were still inclined to put in the controversial stuff. I am not attacking your thesis, for even I have commented on such matters. (And if you don't believe me, check here where I mentioned the use of Judas to represent Judah the land which people are freed from Jesus along the same lines as you do for other names.) However, if you cannot respond to such criticism as earlier, than I have no further evaluation. If you would like dialogue, we have more to discuss and debate. I have been cordial enough, but you instead resorted to ad homines - how am I supposed to respond? But whatever.

Chris

Beth Phillips

Dear Chris,

I do not mind criticism at all...in fact, constructive criticism is what makes an argument stronger, and that is what I want most for this work. This cannot be about you being right and me being wrong, this is about getting to the bottom of a recent discovery that has escaped the eyes of scholars for many centuries.

The bilingual wordplay present in the New Testament is not my opinion, neither is the bilingual wordplay found in the Platonic Dialogues. This evidence stands on its own, regardless of how I book-end the presentation of the material. After four years of working with this material, I have drawn the best and most workable conclusion that I have been able to determine.

We all have to keep in mind that this is a very radical discovery, and as such it will challenge traditional understandings and accepted norms--on many levels in fact. In a situation like this, the best way to objectively approach the problem is with a suspension of previously held assumptions (so heavily relied upon in the past) until we can totally rule out all other possible explanations. Regardless of the outcome, however, our traditional assumptions will still never be the same again; permanent and radical change has occurred.

I suppose that a little background is not out of order, for you and for other readers. Maybe that will help.

For a long time I was also convinced that the Semitic wordplay in the New Testament was due to the expected Semitic heritage of the writers. What other conclusion was there? It was a no-brainer. This conclusion was strengthened even more when I found how pervasive Semitic wordplay was in the creation and development of the narratives in the Hebrew Bible (see the work of M. Garsiel.) I was very confident about my thesis.

Then I began to find some things that nagged at me to the point that I had to investigate, e.g., the first one was the aural similarity between zakar, which means "to remember" and the proper name 'Isocrates'. I had previously studied the Platonic Dialogues and knew that 'remembering' was an essential element to Plato's philosophy, so I was eventually compelled (after ignoring it for over a year) to go the dialogues to see what I could find. As you can see, bilingual proper name wordplay was used in the creation and development of a lot of important narrative sequences in these writings, and my study is far from exhaustive. I then returned to the New Testament and began to find so many examples of the same kind of wordplay that I began to question my previous traditional assumptions.

This then leads to some very logical questions:

1) Why would Plato use Semitic in his dialogues? I thought I could easily explain why the New Testament writers did, but...in light of the same methodology being found in Plato, maybe my quick and natural reliance upon tradition was a bit too easy--Occum's Razor or no--something was going on that I could not explain, and I was not willing to just explain it away either.

2) If Plato used Semitic meanings for Greek proper names in his dialogues in the 4th c bce, and the New Testament writers did the same five hundred years later, then where did the NT writers receive their knowledge of the methodology--from Platonic studies through Greek education, or from Jewish literary tradition and knowledge of Semitic language? I began to search for the answer. All early Jewish scholars, dating back as far as the mid-3rd c bce (Demetrius and Eupolemus in the mid-2nd c bce,) were all Greek speaking, Greek educated Jews. There is no evidence that these Jewish writers even knew a Semitic language, and as best as can be determined, their primary text was the LXX. The same held true all the way through the first century ce and Philo, into the second and third centuries with Clement and Origen. Moreover, it is generally accepted that the LXX was the source for the New Testament writers. With all of this knowledge I then logically asked:

3) Where is a Semitic presence? It must be there, mustn't it??? Only if we are glued to traditional assumptions--which I was not, so no, not necessarily. In order to solve the need for the Semitic element, there was the known existence and use of the onomastic lists, written in Greek with Semitic meanings, which very adequately provided the necessary Semitic element. In other words, the writers of the NT did not have to be Semitic at all--Plato wasn't--but they certainly could have been Greek.

So if: a) there was no literate Semitic presence to be found; b) every known Jewish writer was Greek; c) we can, with very little doubt, place the Greek LXX as antecedent to the Greek New Testament; d) show where every one of the earliest Jewish and Christian scholars were all Greek educated and quite knowledgable of Plato, then the chances are very good that the bilingual literary tradition, as well as the actual biblical written tradition, was Greek...not Semitic. This to me is now the 'no-brainer'.

If you, or anyone, can show me how the bilingual word plays in the New Testament and Plato can be explained within the traditional understanding of biblical studies, and within the accepted assumptions of the natural growth and relationship of these two seemingly disparate languages, then I would love to see what that would be. I have racked my brain for an explanation and I cannot find a better one.

I am well aware of the philological arguments for an antecedence of a Semitic text, e.g., the excessive use of kai in the LXX, etc. I want us to build a case for an antecedence of the LXX, using the bilingual wordplays, the lack of historical veracity of biblical scripture, as well as the heavy Greek influence of the earliest known Judaism, and just see which one holds up as the stronger antecedent. We must take everything we know for sure into consideration, and if we do this correctly, we will take nothing for granted. If the LXX will nestle right in between Plato and the NT, then we will indeed have the necessary continuity to support the presented evidence.

Speaking of evidence: I realize that 'absence of evidence is not evidence of absence', but...this argument is not a good enough reason to automatically defer to traditional assumptions, especially when new data becomes available, or moreover, when something like religious faith and solidarity that comes with that holds such a strong arm of persuasion. That is not good scholarship. That is good religion.

Between us personally Chris, there is no reason to play one-up-manship, or be unreasonably arrogant with me. Nor I you, for that matter. As I asked in my PM to you: in the spirit of seeking knowledge, and learning something new, just look at the whole of the material with a critical, but objective eye: 'objective' meaning, suspend everything you have taken for granted so far and see what this all looks like by beginning tabula rasa.

If you can do that, I would gladly welcome your critique, questions, and suggestions.

Sincerely,
Beth

Beth Phillips

I put this together for the rivers and lands in question. I have a whole three-ring binder full of them, but for the presentation on the website, I had to be prudent!

Pishon
to multiply
to be scattered, to be dispersed
abundance, plenty
to do away with, blot out, vanish


Havilah [Grk. Euilat]
to be joined, husband to wife
to wind, surround, encircle
writhing in anguish, pain of childbirth
to desire, to lust [Euan/Euan/Eve]


Gihon
breaking forth, as a child from the womb, or as a river from the mountains
To burst forth, to birth
Grk: a coming into being




Cush
black, to burn, scorch
[Grk: Aethiops/Ethiopia]
Grk: to scorch, firey
Grk: countenance (face, bearing, demeanor)


Tigris/Hiddeqel
to rejoice
to be dishonored
to be swift
curse
cause to sojourn


Assur [Grk: Assurion/Assyrian]
happiness, blessedness
to be stubborn, rebellious, to become sullen

Euphrates
fruitfulness
to be fruitful
to desire, to lust


I hope this helps to explain what Cass found...

Beth

p.s. there are probably a few more buried in there as well....this was just a quickie...

Beth Phillips

BTW:
Three of these names, Havilah, Gihon and Pishon also contain wordplays with the main characters in this story:

חוה / chwh / Eve, and
חוילה/chw-ylh /Havilah, and

coun/choun/dust,
gaia/gaia/Gihon/ground
×?דמה/adamah/Adam

And then there is:

Fiswn/phison/Pishon, and
ofiV/ophis/snake/serpent.

I just ran across these additional examples and thought I would add them to the last post.


Beth

cass256

Beth. thank you for the river names. It certainly looks like evidence of your theory. I keep getting side tracked, and am waiting on the name book, but i did play a little bit with Zecheriah and Elizabeth, who Luke 1 writes about. Their names seem to reveal the righteous way they walk. Would you mind doing a look, when you have a chance. I actually wanted to do a study on John the Baptist, but ended up starting with the parents, and thinking luke had to have picked those names with a purpose.
I am trying to decide on a computer program with Bible texts as well as lexicons/dictionary to take some of this work. I'm afraid I get lost flipping back and forth with the dictionaries I have on hand. I am not an organized person at all, and a terrible memory. Also, I have a fastly fading computer. So, I need to get a notebook that is seperate for doing this type of thing, until I get a new computer and a good program for launguage and biblical texts. I'll probably go for a new one when I go to the States in December. That always seems to be a good month to spend all the money I don't have.
At any rate, Thank you for finishing the rivers. I've also been visiting your site. I was going to e-mail you there to inquire about the surroundings of john the B, but since i am here I figured I'd post. By the time I pull up your website, i'll forget what i was going to do. I wanted to say, also, that i like the fire water play with the triangles SHeM /name, for your logo.

At any rate, i am finding your info on Paul very interesting, to say the least. Excuse the pun. and see you have been keeping busy on your site. Just wanted you to know I am hanging around, even if you don't see me. I have a few controvercial questions on the name of the god of the old testament, relating to his, at times, distructive nature. When he talks of bringing Israel out and gives his name to moses, he says he will show his wonders in Egypt, which we know were destructive. In fact I believe he calls the death he sends "the destroyer". I'd have to look it up. What i want to know is if that is written into his name, as HYH or HVH. It is using strong's 1962, and brown Drivers mentions HYH also. It just isn't a verb when used in job 6:2. Am I way off the mark, or like Paul, over stepping my bounds? Very curious there.


cass